In recent years, mobile wireless communications have become increasingly popular. Initial implementations of mobile wireless communications, for example in the form of cellular telephone networks, supported circuit switched voice communication services. Wireless communication devices such as mobile or “cell” phones have expanded greatly in functionality over the last decade. As the public wireless communication networks have evolved to provide greater bandwidth and packet based services, the industry has developed a variety of data services, such as web browsing, as well as a variety of mobile messaging service technologies, such as multimedia message service (MMS) technology. Along with the advances in network technologies has come a technological revolution in the capabilities offered by a vast array of advanced wireless devices.
Carriers take great care to ensure that wireless devices on their network are authenticated and authorized for service. In this regard, customers are typically required to go through various cumbersome activation processes in order to connect a new wireless device to a wireless network. Until a subscriber activates the wireless device, access to the network is generally not permitted. One typical activation process, in-store activation, requires a customer to enter a store to activate the mobile device. In other instances, activation, authentication, and provisioning are performed “over the air” where the subscriber initiates the activation process by pressing an activation button or dialing a prescribed sequence on the wireless device.
Over-the-air service activation requires communication with a server or the like of the carrier with whom the user subscribes or intends to subscribe for mobile network communication services for the particular device. This communication is a relatively simple and convenient matter, when the wireless device to be activated is in an area where the device can communicate via the particular carrier's network. However, in some cases, the wireless device may be in an area where a designated wireless carrier's network is not available. Further, other networks of alternate carriers may not recognize the device and therefore prohibit network access for activation communication with the server of the intended service provider/carrier. There currently is not an efficient and secure way of activating a wireless device over an alternate network.